Juneau is at the forefront of Alaska’s burgeoning pinball scene

Nine years ago, Rebecca and Henry Kephart fell in love over pinball machines.  

“One of our dates was, we went and played pinball, and he beat me. No one’s ever beaten me at pinball, so I decided I should marry him,” Rebecca Kephart said. 

The couple spoke to KTOO while standing outside Juneau’s Crystal Saloon holding boxes of pizza, before Juneau’s most recent pinball tournament.

All they really care about is beating each other, but they’ve been finishing fourth and fifth in the local tournaments. This year, for the first time, Alaska tournament results are going to the International Flipper Pinball Association, which publishes online rankings for players all over the world. 

That group is run by the Sharpe brothers, Zach and Josh. For pinball aficionados, that name might sound familiar — they’re the sons of Roger Sharpe, a GQ reporter who was instrumental in making pinball legal in Manhattan in the 1970s.

Josh Sharpe said the brothers revived the pinball association in the early 2000s, and it’s grown far more than they expected. He loves the way that the tournaments unite people, even those just trying to beat each other, like the Kepharts.

“Really, we’re both fighting this machine,” he said. “And there’s really a sense of camaraderie and support even among people, you know, playing against other people.”

Sharpe said he loves to see pinball growing in places like Alaska because he believes the people who start playing will form their own communities in the sport.

“If we can find someone to sort of like, pull into our little family, it’s usually safe that they’ll find two more people, and then those people will find two more people,” he said.

Upstairs, at the Bearcade — a recently opened games bar above the Crystal Saloon — David Elrod enforces the rules and pretty much smokes the other players.

He started organizing pinball tournaments in Juneau after falling into the sport in California when he was going through a divorce. He said he didn’t like to spend too much time at his apartment, so he found himself going to an arcade instead. 

Elrod is the top-ranked player in Alaska, but he wants to generate some competition and share the love of the sport with others. 

“I get feedback a lot about how people —  just especially a lot of people are introverts and don’t normally come out very much and just found this community that they get to go to, which is what was always really important to me,” he said.

Since Elrod started the tournaments in April, 70 people in Anchorage and Juneau have jumped in. He said that’s more than some states with far more people.

And Juneau players are catching up to Elrod. 

“Last couple tournaments have been so friggin’ competitive,” he said. “Within the final round of the final game, it was three of us tied for first. Like, ‘This is when you lose one finally, David.’”

Ettin Briar is one of the players who’s been closing in on Elrod. They consistently come second.

“I like to make him fight for it,” they said.

Briar has only been playing for about two years. They started playing at a pizza place, and then the Bearcade opened.

“They put some machines in here and I was ecstatic and now there’s a whole little community about it,” they said.

Upstairs, the tournament took a surprising turn. Rebecca Kephart played a strong final round on the hardest machine, the Hulk. She came in first, beating the three left in the tournament — by a lot. 

Henry Kephart was almost as excited as she was. But, with a strong lead going into that round, Elrod won again that night.

The top 16 players in the state will get a chance to duke it out for number one in Sitka in January. If the current rankings stand, 11 players will be from Juneau.